High-Density Housing Rises in a Historic Part of Jersey City, N.J.

Journal Squared, a 53-story, $280 million apartment tower, is expected to be ready for tenants this winter

For decades, Jersey City has been defined by the glassy towers of its eastern skyline—the aptly named Gold Coast—behind which extended a plain of row houses and warehouses that stretched clear to Newark.

Not anymore.

“You can almost see it from here,” says architect Marc Kushner, sitting alongside partner Matthias Hollwich in the Financial District offices of their shared firm, HWKN.

The studio’s latest project is a 53-story apartment tower in Jersey City’s Journal Square. Known as Journal Squared, the building at first glance is a near dead ringer for Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue, a white shaft gridded with dark windows.

Ready for rental tenants this winter, the $280 million building is the first of a projected three-tower complex. The others, which are expected to rise 70 and 60 stories, will bring the total number of units to 1,838 spread out across 2.4 million square feet. They will be linked at ground level with landscaped plazas that lead in turn to the adjacent PATH station.

Upon closer inspection, the similarities between Journal Squared and 432 Park start to fade: The New Jersey tower has a recessed portion that extends from the entryway up most of the north and south facades, and its windows are outlined in blue frames, giving the building “a sense of presence,” as Mr. Hollwich puts it.

Once the tower is flanked by its companions, each set back on a mid-rise base, the grouping will look less like Mr. Viñoly’s project and more like the art deco ensemble of buildings at Rockefeller Center.

The timeline for completion remains in flux, but its developers believe the complex represents a new, New Jersey urbanism.

“Jersey City started to rethink high-density about seven years ago,” said Mr. Kushner.

As elsewhere in the northern reaches of the state, local planners have been looking to cluster development around Jersey City’s extensive transit infrastructure, including the PATH, Hudson River ferries, light rail and highway networks.

The historic Journal Square district was a prime example of an underdeveloped hot spot. Six years ago, the city council adopted the Journal Square 2060 plan, which allowed for a pocket of ultra-tall towers on the perimeter of the Journal Square Transportation Center.

Bordered by Pavonia and Summit avenues, the Journal Squared site is flanked on its southern side by a 1960s parking structure of the Brutalist type, a looping ramp of concrete connected to an at-grade arrival plaza cluttered with protective bollards.

“After 9/11, there was a lot of concern about security,” notes Mr. Hollwich.

The entryway to Journal Square will be redesigned by HWKN along with collaborators Handel Architects and landscape specialists Melillo+Bauer Associates. It will include a covered walkway passing straight through the tower’s ground level.

These and other public amenities are complemented by private ones, among them a double-height fitness center, outdoor pool on the projecting eastern deck, and a 53rd-floor lounge for residents with views that take in both lower Manhattan and Midtown.

Developers KRE Group (of which Marc Kushner’s brother is president) and National Real Estate Advisors will begin leasing the apartments, most of them studios and one-bedrooms with a few larger units, in December. Even with relatively high prices—$1,900 for the studios—the team expects considerable interest. HWKN’s last project for the same clients was 18 Park, a building in the Paulus Hook neighborhood a couple miles east, and it leased out quickly.

The possibilities for what Messrs. Kushner and Hollwich deem “Tokyo-style” planning, with vertical mini-towns springing up along Jersey City’s commuter corridors, has only been enhanced by recent improvements to regional transportation—especially architect Santiago Calatrava’s much-debated World Trade Center transportation hub, three stops from Journal Square.

“Everybody’s complaining that no one’s using it,” said Mr. Kushner of the hub. “They won’t be for long. That’s basically our front door.”